Abstract
We investigated the effect of dental metals on cells from the perspective of genotoxicity. We did chromosome aberration tests, which are one of the main genotoxicity tests, using extracts of seven metals commonly used during dental treatment. The metal extracts were used in chromosome aberration tests and MTT assay, which used cultures of Syrian hamster embryo cells. Hg induced various chromosome aberrations and reduced cell viability below 20% at 69.81μM. Cu also induced chromosome aberrations and reduced cell viability below 60% at 900μM. Ag induced various chromosome aberrations at 150μM and cell viability at that level was about 50%. Ni and Co did not induce chromosome aberrations, but yielded few metaphases at concentrations that decreased cell viability to about 60%. Two other metals, Cr and Ti did not induce chromosome aberrations or cytotoxicity. Although these results are from in vitro experiments, they are considered important indicators of the effects these materials might produce in the oral cavity during clinical use.
